RareInk.com offers this piece featuring Laker All-Star guard Kobe Bryant by Mark Sgarbossa, a San Diego artist. This has been RareInk's top seller since it launched its NBA line in October 2012. PHOTO COURTESY RAREINK.COM/TEXT BY MARCIA C. SMITH, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

RareInk.com offers this piece featuring Laker Hall of Fame guard Magic Johnson by Andrew Saul. It is part of a triptych with pieces featuring Jerry West and Kobe Bryant. PHOTO COURTESY RAREINK.COM/TEXT BY MARCIA C. SMITH, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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RareInk.com offers this Lakers work by Mike Harrison, a British artist who also did a modern logo series for the company. PHOTO COURTESY RAREINK.COM/TEXT BY MARCIA C. SMITH, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

CARLSBAD – In a hillside Tiger Run Court office complex, tucked in the maze of new, plain, beige offices of startups, tiny firms and a jiu-jitsu school is an ominous Suite 101.

Nothing but "101" in white stenciled numbers on a blacked-out storefront of tinted glass doors and walls. No business name. No logos. No hint, glimmer or clue that — inside this 1,500 square-foot headquarters and warehouse of RareInk — the traditional notion of sports memorabilia is getting painted over.

Since late October, RareInk, the fledgling sports venture/adventure of Orange County entrepreneurs Tim Muret and Dave Sanders, has been producing the "official art of the NBA." In March, it plans to launch its Major League Baseball collection.

The front door of their Carlsbad headquarters opens into its own NBA All-Star Game every day — except there's the pingpong table/conference table in the middle of this bright, busy art gallery/boardroom/two-employee lounge.

The walls and floors are covered with about a hundred vibrant, kinetic, highly graphic and stylized artist proofs on copy paper, archival paper and canvas.

San Diego-based rock poster artist Mark Sgarbossa's painted image of Lakers guard Kobe Bryant dribbling on his 81-point night is stretched across 24-by-30-inch canvas and hanging on the right wall.

French artist Caroline Blanchett rendered Knicks All-Star forward Carmelo Anthony driving down the lane in an explosion of blue and bright orange for a corner print.

Two dozen 8-by-10 color proofs of paintings, including Polish artist Gabz's ultrarealistic takes on a posting-up Larry Bird, a skywalking Magic Johnson and a one-handed-dunking Michael Jordan, are push-pinned into a bulletin board covering the left wall.

"We're trying to bring something to the table that is different stylistically and offer high quality, limited edition, extraordinary, accessible and affordable fine art to sports fans," said RareInk chief executive officer Muret, who grew up in Tustin.

Muret and Sanders, of Dana Point, met a decade ago while working as executives for Carlsbad-based sports memorabilia and trading card giant Upper Deck.

They left Upper Deck to start RareInk in 2009, a year after having seen how sports fans positively responded when Upper Deck offered of a graphic portrait of a newly crowned NBA MVP Bryant by contemporary artist Shepard Fairey. (Yes, Fairey of the Barack Obama "Hope" posters.)

Sanders, who grew up in Redondo Beach exposed to skateboard graphic arts, designed Hot Wheels for Mattel before joining Upper Deck and RareInk.

Now he uses that discriminating eye to identify world artists with edgy, evocative styles and then commissions them to paint, draw and computer-graphically render the NBA's most recognizable stars making their most signature moves on some of their most memorable nights.

The artists, some of them with no sports ties, use a series of Getty Images photos provided by RareInk to create original artwork in their own style. The NBA collection currently features 120 original pieces representing all 30 teams.

From each commissioned work, RareInk can reproduce the image in any of four limited-edition, high-quality product lines: a 24-by-30-inch canvas limited to 100 ($199); an 18-by-24 canvas limited to 250 ($119); a 24-by-30 print limited to 100 ($99); and an 18-by-24 print limited to 250 ($69).

An eCommerce company, all the business happens online through RareInk.com. The printing is done in Los Angeles to order since canvas and archival ink and 100-pound paper are condition sensitive. The prints are hand-numbered and hand-embossed. The canvases are ready-to-hang.

Demand peaked around the holidays, with the Clippers putting in orders for commissioned art for their 14 players and Coach Vinny Del Negro. The fine art became something fans were willing to display in a living room, office or "gentle"man cave — not just a sports-themed bar or hangout.

"We're hearing from a lot of people that this is something they've never seen before, something that's passing 'The Wife Test,'" Sanders said.

The biggest test is whether RareInk sells, bridging the gap between sports performance art to fine art and going from a little-known Carlsbad office complex into your home.

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